Daily Archives: November 13, 2015

In previous years, I havepublished comparisons of both Airbus’ and Boeing’s forecasts (Current Market Outlook, CMO, PDF 6.5MB). You can find below the update of such comparison with the latest released figures from both companies.

Comparison of Airbus GMF and Boeing CMO 2015-2034.

Some comments about the comparison:

Boeing sees demand for 9% more passenger aircraft (excluding regional a/c) with a 10% more value (excluding freighters). The gap is the same as in 2014 (in previous years Boeing forecasted up to 14% more aircraft).

In relation to last year studies, Airbus has increased demand by ~1,200 aircraft about the same increase seen at Boeing’s.

Boeing continues to play down A380 niche potential (67% less a/c than Airbus’ GMF). This year, Airbus has increased in about 50 units its forecasted demand for the VLA segment.

Both companies’ forecast for the twin aisle segment is nearly identical: ~7,500 aircraft (Airbus sees demand for about a 100 more than Boeing). The mix between small and intermediate twins varies, 700 units up and down. However,Boeing’s wide-bodies mixis not to be taken as engraved in stone, see the erratic trend in the last yearshere.

On the other hand, Boeing forecasts about 3,800 single-aisle more than Airbus (the gap has widened in 200 units this year, lower than in 2013 forecasts though). Boeing doesn’t provide in 2015 CMO the split between more or less than 175 pax capacity airplanes.

In terms of RPKs (“revenue passenger kilometer”), that is, the number of paying passenger by the distance they are transported, they see a similar future: Airbus forecasts for 2034 ~15.2 RPKs (in trillion, 4.6% annual growth from today) while Boeing forecasts 16.15RPKs (4.9% annual growth).

The main changes from last year’s forecasts are:

Both manufacturers have increased their passenger aircraft forecast in ~1,200 a/c.

Both manufacturers haveincreased the volume (trn$)of the market in these 20 years, by about 300bn$ or 6.5%(excluding regional jets and freighters).

Some lines to retain from this type of forecasts:

Passenger world traffic (RPK) will continue to grow about 4.6% per year (4.9% according to Boeing). This is, doubling every ~15 years.

Today there are about 17,354 passenger aircraft around the world(according to Airbus; 17,350 in Boeing’s CMO), this number is about 500 a/c more than the year before (3% increase) and will more than double over the next 20 years to above 35,749 a/c in 2034(over 37,990 as seen by Boeing, excluding regional jets).

Most deliveries will go toAsia-Pacific, 40% or 12,596 passenger aircraft (according to Airbus).

Domestic travel in China will be the largest traffic flowin 2034 with over 1,600bn RPK (according to Airbus (x 3.8 times more than today’s traffic), or 1,704bn RPK according to Boeing), or11% of the World’s traffic.

About 13,400 aircraft will be retired to be replaced by moreeco-efficient types.

GDP and traffic growth (source: Airbus 2015 GMF).

As I do every year, I strongly recommend both documents (GMF and CMO) which provide a wealth of information of market dynamics.